As a PhD candidate, Dr Katie Hail-Jares’ days were pretty normal—teaching, writing, and reading—but her nights were more unconventional. For five years, Dr Hail-Jares volunteered with an overnight syringe exchange, driving around Washington, DC to distribute condoms, syringes, and hot chocolate to people who used drugs and street-based sex workers.
That volunteer experience inspired Dr Hail-Jares, now a post-doctoral research fellow with the Griffith Criminology Institute, to pursue epidemiological criminology. “That is a fancy way of saying I am interested in how criminalising behaviour impacts health outcomes for different people.”
During these outreach shifts, Dr. Hail-Jares was especially interested in how street-based sex workers navigated and pushed back against the policies introduced to make them less visible. It was this first-hand experience that formed the basis for her new book Challenging Perspectives on Street-based Sex Work.
Dr Katie Hail-Jares
Edited by Hail-Jares, Corey Shdaimah (University of Maryland), and Chrysanthi Leon (University of Delaware) the